Locking Console

Jeeps with Soft
Tops have a bit of a disadvantage – other than the glove compartment,
there is really no place to secure valuables such as wallets and cameras
and such. I was able to buy a Smittybilt #31917 Steel Locking Console
(no longer manufactured) which is shown in the photos below. This
console bolts to the floor, and has a huge amount of room, even though
it fits over the parking brake lever.

A large variety of
locking center consoles are available (see
below) – the trick is to select one that fits your particular Jeep's
configuration.

Since nobody
really likes to crawl under vehicles, and it would take TWO people
to place the bolts through the floorboard and secure the console in
place, I decided that since I was the only one working on this
project, that I would simplify matters by using a bit of ingenuity.

I pulled up
the factory carpeting and placed the console between the seats,
marking the position that the bolts would have to occupy on the
floorboard. I drilled small 1/8" holes as pilot holes through the
mounting holes provided in the console. I waited until it got dark
outside and used a flashlight shining through the holes from above,
and a mirror under the Jeep to see where the holes were, and insure
that drilling in those spots wouldn't hit anything vital under the
Jeep. Once I had determined that the bolt positions were safe and
accessible from underneath, I drilled the holes just a bit larger
than the 5/8" diameter of the bolts supplied with the console.

I used my
Dremel Stylus Tool
with a 1/8" bit to drill a hole in the end of the two bolts, about
1/4" deep. Then used the
Cut-Off Wheel
to cut a slot wide enough for a heavy-duty screwdriver (see diagram,
above).

I went into my
scrap wire drawer and found two 4' lengths of #24 stranded copper
wire and tied a tight knot at one end, securing it with
Super Glue, and cutting off the excess after the glue dried, so
I had a tight knot at the end of the wire. I pushed the knot into
the hole I drilled in the bolt and secured it in place with
PC-7 Epoxy
(red arrow, top photo), being careful not to get the epoxy into the
threads. I allowed the epoxy to cure for 18 hours.

The next
morning I used a wire coat hanger with a hook bent into it (yellow
arrow)
threaded through the holes in the floorboard to retrieve the wire
and pull the bolts with large washers on them (red
arrow)
through the holes from underneath the Jeep.

The photo at
the left shows one of the bolts in the floorboard (green
arrow)
next to the parking brake lever boot immediately below it. Make sure
you have 1" of bolt above the floor, else use a longer bolt. Hold
the bolt in place as you thread the nut over the wire and down onto
the bolt. Once the nut is secured to the bolt, you can pull off the
wire and tighten the bolt with a hex wrench.

When the nut
is snug, break off the epoxy bead with a pliers or wire cutter, and
dig the epoxy out of the screwdriver slot. If the bolt turns as you
tighten the nut, use a heavy screwdriver in the slot to hold the
bolt from turning as you tighten the nut tightly to the floorboard.

When the nut
is as tight to the bolt as practicable, you may want to make sure it
doesn't come loose by applying a few drops of Super Glue
close to the nut, and allowing it to seep into the threads.

With both
mounting bolts secured firmly to the floorboard, (re)install
the carpeting. If you are installing new carpeting, make sure
that it lays properly before cutting any holes.

The photo at
the left shows installation of new industrial grade carpeting (covered
in detail here). When the carpet is in place, push down on the
mounting bolts and use a carpet knife or box cutter to cut an "X"
into the carpet across the top of the bolt, and then press the
carpet down over the bolts. There should be 3/4" of bolt protruding
out of the carpet.

NOTE: If you
are installing a center console, make sure it does not interfere
with the rear seat folding up before you bolt it down. This
particular console prevented the rear seat from folding up when I
tried to push it back a little bit, but I
never fold the seat up except to retrieve tools stored under there,
so for me, this was not an issue, considering all the secure space
it has. I finally compromised and pulled the console forward a bit
so that when the rear seat is folded up, it rests snugly against the
back of the console box.

In the two
photos at the left, you can see that the locking console I chose
fits really tightly between the factory seats. The up-side is that there is
a lot of room inside to store a full-size digital SLR Nikon camera
with a 200mm zoom lens, 4-cell Maglite flashlight, extra batteries,
paperwork, etc.

This particular console can store approximately 4 to
5 times what you can fit in the Wrangler's glove box, but it is no
longer being manufactured. However, the
ones shown below are functional equivalents.

I needed to
either re-upholster the driver's seat or replace it because of a
huge void in the seat padding, and as I went looking for "junkyard"
seats one day, I happened to stumble upon someone selling really
nicely made racing seats that
were (allegedly) removed from a '98 Wrangler, however, he did not
have brackets or adapters for these seats to fit the Jeep seat frame.

The slightly
narrower seats solved the "too snug"
problem, and my back feels a lot better on long trips or when
Jeepin' through the NJ Pine Barrens with
these seats installed, but I had to install a
new cup holder and re-purpose the one on
the shifter console because the front of the driver's seat prevented
me from using the cup holder for its intended purpose.

The photo at
the left shows the Locking Console with the
3A Racing seats installed.

There is much
more room between the seat backs and the Console lid than there was
with the "stock" Jeep bucket seats.

The rear seat
when folded up on a "stock" '97 Jeep Wrangler does not lock in this
position. Although I do not fold my back seat up frequently, doing
so is possible with the Locking Console, and although it seems a bit
tight, it's OK because the seat now stays in place in this position
without tying it to the Roll Bar.